Surviving monastic refugees founded Tibetan and Nepalese Buddhist scholarship.

Evidence

When Bakhtiyar Khilji’s forces sacked the Nalanda monastic university in 1193, they burned a library that had been accumulated over seven centuries. The fire reportedly burned for three months. Accounts suggest the library was so vast that there was simply not enough fire to consume it quickly — the books kept feeding the flame. Surviving monks fled across Tibet, Nepal, and Central Asia, carrying whatever manuscripts they could transport on their bodies. What they carried established the foundation of Tibetan and Nepalese Buddhist scholarship — the traditions that flourished in those regions for the following eight centuries were built from the fragments that monks carried away on foot. — Jamal Awil, The Whispering Archive, 463

Categorization

• FICTION: The monks carrying manuscripts on foot to seed new traditions is a potent image for a story about fleeing knowledge.